“Hush, child. Go to sleep.” It’s another one of those nights. The 18 month-old will not be silenced. Milk, pacifier, toys, rocking, none will quiet his infantile soul. It’s times like these I think back to the time just before all of this happened. Back when life was somewhat perfect, carefree. As the night grows longer, I begin to drown out the cries, and go back to the time… before I had to accept responsibility.
Her name was Vivian, a high school vixen if EVER there was one. Well put together, not to mention a good head on her shoulders. Her endless hair that streamed down her back must have been what hooked me… I was in the main hallway during rush hour, (when it’s time to go, it’s time to GO!) and in the midst of all the traffic, I saw her. She was walking from the gyms with an outfit you could take to the clubs and STILL to yo’ mama. Amazingly enough, it seemed as if we were walking in the hallway, just her and I. I was too weak to go up to her and speak as if I was someone significant. She had me in a daze, abruptly interrupted by a brisk push into a brick wall. That collusion set something off in me; I was swifter, smarter, suave. I felt like a conqueror, ready to claim what I saw fit to be mine. My (new) mind was made up, and I went after her. Just as she was to exit the building, I slid in front of her with a smile to charm the heavens and my number and address. As a giggle escaped her lips, she took the slip that held my info, and watched as I moon-walked away and turned around to go catch my bus.
Over the next few weeks, a relationship began to form. From the outside looking in, it was often said we were going way to fast, that somebody was going to end up hurt. Oh, but we were so blissfully ignorant, and all the signs that we passed that our parents had installed themselves to tell us where we were headed, were painted, “More LOVE Ahead”. So we continued down our “road to hell is paved with good intentions” and began to do more than talk… slowly but surely, our love was turning to lust. Our talking to touching. Our touching to embracing. Our embracing to kissing. Our kissing to undressing each other. Then came the time for our painfully greedy lust to be satisfied. There was nothing left to do but to cross that final threshold.
Our “hearts” just happened to find each other at her house. Ironically, her parents were at church workshop, at which they would be spending the whole evening there well into the morning hours, at the time. Throwing all caution, common sense, and morals to the wind, we also did our clothes. We then proceeded to go where instinct and desire took us, long into the night. (Well, 9:30 cause we, too, were supposed to be at church and back home by now.) What we didn’t know was that what took place between our genitals would result in something irreversible…
The next week at school, I only saw her half as much as I normally would. Then the next week, I didn’t see her at all. I didn’t have to have much smarts to figure out that something had gone awry. I went home that day worried, deep in thought as I walked through the door, only to be pummeled by Auntie! What I could pick up through the cursing, was that Vivian… was pregnant (dun-dun-dun DUN). We were forced to make a decision then and there. Whatever was coursing through our minds at the time was disbelief, so we said we were to keep the baby.
We had a healthy pregnancy; we did as adults, working until the baby kept her off her feet for long periods of time. Our parents, not to mention church members, gave us earful, after earful… after earful, but they eventually got over it and decided that we had seen the reality enough to begin to help us out financially. Everything was going as well as we’d hoped… but there was something about the third trimester that bothered me deeply. Vivian began to look sickly. I could always just suppress it for a time, but then it would just come back…
Then came the day. We were on holiday and just happened to be packing her maternity bags, when her water decides to break. So we all rush, rush, rush to the hospital, fill every form for admittance, and she goes in to labor. LORD, did she go into labor. For 18 looong hours, she brought Darryl Lee McCall into the world, and unbeknownst to me, she was fading out of it. With her last throes of contractions, her heart gave out. She could not be revived. She was dead before they could cut the umbilical cord. I was then faced with a decision. I could act like nothing had ever happened, and just leave him there for the hospital and state to deal with. Or, I could accept my consequences for a night of yearning, and raise this child to be an upstanding citizen of the world…
By this time, Darryl had given up on trying to get me to listen to his needs for a motherly touch, when all I had felt like was the discouraged father who was tired of life. As I come out of my reverie, I realize Darryl has cried himself to sleep, yet again, and I, too, cry.
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